Wine Coasters

I've always wanted to try these but never got around to it. There are various ways to make them but I like this way. I saw a tutorial for making them from 7" squares that was easy enough but I like the finished look of this one better. For this one you need five 5" squares per coaster.

The idea is that you can slip the base of the wine glass into the coaster and then carry it around with you. Then you will never accidentally put the glass down on a good piece of furniture that moisture can damage.

Made with the five pieces of fabric it stays in a nice shape. I found the one I made with just one piece of fabric was floppy. So I chose to make this pattern instead. More cutting to it but really easy to sew. I made 8 of them for sale at the bazaar. 

I haven't been feeling 100% this week, and I'm still not but I am better enough to run out and cut the lawn while we have a day of sunshine. I've been really tired and my naps haven't been affecting my night time sleep at all so I know I'm really tired. It's probably just adjusting to trying to change my body clock. 

I was thinking about Hazel's question about using hand sanitizer in church. I noticed when I was there for a study on Tuesday that we have those Purell dispensers all over the place in the church. I should have remembered that cause there's one in the kitchen we use when we're making sandwiches but I never thought of general use ones. Now that I think about it I could tell you where all those dispensers are but I couldn't tell you where to find a fire extinguisher... hmmm. 

I also made a cute tablerunner on Saturday but haven't  gotten it put together. I'll be posting it when it's finished. 

I also went down to the quilt shop today to get a new blade. They have the prettiest embroidered sample by the cash register. It was almost like a cross between embroidery and cross-stitch. So I've signed up for the class. It's in December. 

Church Bells

When I was a child we lived in downtown Ottawa. Every Sunday morning Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring I would walk the 5 blocks to church with my parents, each of them holding one of my hands. It felt like a special time, I guess because it was a set routine. The church was a large brick building built around the turn of the century. It is still in use today and in good shape.

There is another part to the church not shown in this photo. It was almost as tall and housed the church basement (where Sunday School was held), the hall which was like a gymnasium and stage and on the top floor lived the caretaker. Among other jobs he was the one who rang the bells on Sunday mornings and on other special occasions like weddings. 

Now I live on the other side of the country and this is the church I go to.

This church was also built just before the turn of the century but is wood rather than brick. There are extensions to one side and to the back which hold the offices, sunday school, worship center and nursery. Amazingly enough this church was raised at one time to allow a bottom level to be added to house the Sunday school. Buildings here have no basements. Then when they added the additions the church was lowered again. It survived amazingly well for a building of that age but there are cracks in the plaster ceilings. 

There is no caretaker's apartment because we have a part time cleaner that comes in, men from the congregation do small repairs and there is no need for someone to ring the bells on Sunday morning or at any other time. In fact it is illegal to ring church bells. It is considered disturbing the peace. People actually complained enough at one time that it was necessary to enact a law. We are, however, allowed to cut our lawns, use chainsaws, leaf blowers, power saws, etc on Sundays.  

The church bells in our church have been rung once in the 15 years I've attended. That was on a New Years Day when the bells played a non religious tune to welcome in the New Year. And the church had to jump through hoops for 6 months just to get a permit to ring the bells for 10 minutes. 

I'm at a loss to understand this. Part of Sunday morning in downtown Ottawa was listening to the bells of all the various churches. I miss them. The bells don't just announce church services, they also announce weddings, as I said above, and some ring every day at noon. In Ottawa and Vancouver they fire a cannon at noon, and in Gastown the steam operated clock whistles at noon. Why is the sound of cannons and the loud whistles of clocks preferable to the comforting sound of bells?  

Just something I'm contemplating on today.

Sewing Bird

Last time I went to a craft group meeting I was shown a Sewing Bird and asked if I could make a pattern for it. Sure I said, and I could have I think given enough tries. But I decided to look on the internet to see if I could find a free pattern. Didn't find one but found one that looked just like it that another girl said she made. She had it on Kiiji for $5.00 I make enough little things like that that I decided to buy the pattern from her.

This is my first try. It's okay but a bit lumpy in places. I always need to make a practise one of these things first.

Isn't it cute? The elastic you see on the bottom one is a criss cross and you can keep a round retractible tape measure in there. Under each wing is also a small piece of elastic to hold scissors and a stitch ripper. The rest of the bird you just stick pins in (ouch). I just thought it was the cutest thing.

I was horrified when I got the pattern from this girl. It was a photocopy of a copyrighted pattern from Gooseberry Hill. It was copyrighted in 1991 but a visit to their website showed that they are still selling this pattern - for $8.00. It feels so wrong to make something from an illegal pattern but it is for charity. Maybe I should send Gooseberry Hill the $8.00, or the $3.00 difference. I don't know. What I do know is I'm going to make 2-3 more. 

A girl at the Quilt Shop where I worked was found photocopying all the patterns from the store. Then she put them in those clear page protectors and sold them at a garage sale for $1.00 each. Not only was she cheating the store she could have gotten the store in huge trouble if any of the companies found out what she was doing. Easy fix, they fired her.

I went to a sewing craft meeting yesterday. It was so much fun. We pulled out their stash of Christmas fabrics and we thought about various uses for them. Of course after 3 hours my head began to leak and I couldn't even remember what I was supposed to do. I did say I didn't want to make any more placemats but I've found a couple of really good patterns, darn it.

Anyway, it's a gorgeous sunny Fall day here. We get so few of those these days I'm gonna go for a walk and glory in it.

Have a good weekend everyone.

Basic Rules for Clotheslines

I got an email the other day that took me waaaay back. I guess it should be Wednesday cause this is like Lane's Wayback Wednesday posts. I'm doing laundry today... okay, yesterday and today... not that there's a lot of it but I'm lazy. So here is my clothes line

Not your typical clothesline. It's clothesline cord stretched between two pillars at the edge of our deck. Notice I use hangars for the shirts. That's to save space cause it's very short. I do use clothespins for pants and I keep them in this little bag I made. 

I love my clothespin bag :0)

I have a family tree book written by a great uncle by marriage. He speaks of Templeton, a small, at one time english speaking, community in Quebec,  Canada. I can't read or speak French so I'm glad they were English. All of the women had their laundry finished and out on the line by 7am on Monday morning. If they didn't the community would first check to see if she was ill. If she wasn't ill then she was fodder for gossip for the rest of the week. Glad I don't live in those times. It's now 11:45 on Tuesday morning and only half my laundry is done. Haven't done the pants or towels yet. Due to the wonder of dryers the rest of it is drying without me having to do much.

I realized the following really is how my mom taught me to hang clothes. We don't live in an area where the clothes freeze anymore and besides it rains all winter here so I have to hang things inside during the winter. So the only rule I still follow in this list is #7. DH does leave the pins on the line. Drives me nuts so I go along and take them down.

Of course this all sounds very nostalgic and neat but there were drawbacks. My father wore long underwear in the winter and I remember my mom telling me how one neighbour in particular was shocked to see all the patches on them. But my parents didn't have enough money to waste on new things, especially ones that wouldn't show except on the clothesline.

Love the poem at the end too.

So how do you do following the rules? Do you have a clothesline? I'm not allowed a regular one cause 1. DH says it ruins the ambiance of the yard (rolling eyes)
2. Being at sea level here there's no way we can sink a post deep enough to hang a clothesline on.

Basic Rules for Clothes lines

You have to be a certain age to appreciate  this.   I can hear my mom now ...

THE BASIC  RULES FOR CLOTHES LINES:   (If you don't know what clothes lines are, better skip this.)

1.  You had to wash the clothesline before hanging any clothes.  Walk the entire length of each line wiping the line with a damp cloth.
2.  You had to hang the clothes in a certain order, and always hang "whites" with "whites," and hang them first.

3.  You never hung a shirt by the shoulders - always by the tail!  What would the neighbors think?

4.  Wash day on a Monday . . . Never hang clothes on the weekend, certainly not Sunday, for Heaven's sake!

5.  Hang the sheets and towels on the outside lines so you could hide your "unmentionables" in the middle (perverts & busybodies, y'know!)

6.  It didn't matter if it was sub-zero weather . . . Clothes would "freeze-dry."

7.  Always gather the clothespins when taking down dry clothes!  Pins left on the lines were "tacky!"

8.  If you were efficient, you would line the clothes up so that each item did not need two clothes pins, but shared one of the clothespins with the next washed item.

9.  Clothes had to be off the line before dinner time, neatly folded in the clothes basket, and ready to be ironed.

10. IRONED?  Well, that's a whole other subject!  

 

          POEM

           A clothesline was a news  forecast
           To neighbors passing by.
           There were no secrets you could  keep
           When clothes were hung to dry.

            It also was a friendly link
            For neighbors always knew
            If company had stopped on by
            To spend a night or two.

            For then you'd see the "fancy  sheets"
            And towels upon the  line;
            You'd see the "company table cloths"
            With intricate designs.

            The line announced a baby's  birth
            From folks who lived inside  -
            As brand new infant clothes were  hung,
            So carefully with pride!

           The ages of the children could
            So readily be known
            By watching how the sizes changed,
            You'd know how much they'd grown!

            It also told when illness struck,
            As extra sheets were hung;
            Then nightclothes, and a bathrobe, too,
            Haphazardly were strung.

            It also said, "Gone on vacation now"
            When lines hung limp and bare.
            It told, "We're back!" when full lines sagged
            With not an inch to  spare!

            New folks in town were scorned upon
            If wash was dingy and gray,
            As neighbors carefully raised their  brows,
            And looked the other way . .  ..
 
            But clotheslines now are of the past,
            For dryers make work much less.
            Now what goes on inside a home
            Is anybody's guess!

            I really miss that way of life.
            It was a friendly sign
            When neighbors knew each other best
            By what hung on the line!

Gifts of Grace September Block

I don't know if this is our last block or if there will be one more. I need to count. I do know there will be 9 blocks in total. I really like this one except I hope the next one has a shorter word. It's the word that's taken me so long to embroider. I love the beehive fabric. I think maybe Angela sent that to me. Someone did and when that happens I usually hold onto it for awhile before I use it cause it's special to me. 

I'm thinking I may print the bible verses (Galatians 5: 22-23)  on fabric using my printer and try to fit it into the wall hanging. I think that would look nice and tie it together.  Even if I have to use that square in the backing it would be good. 

I also decided to try Hazel's idea of making myself get up at 8am no matter how little I'd slept. The only problem is, I remember now, is that my body clock shuts down at 4:00 in the afternoon when I do that. Not good cause that's when I need to begin thinking about dinner.  Last night husband was going to take me out for a sandwich and I fell asleep on the couch. Then I wasn't hungry. So maybe I need to add an hour nap in there somewhere during the afternoon. I really do like mornings. I just don't like the getting up part. But I'm crossing my fingers this will work and eventually I'll get enough sleep at night so that I won't get tired during the day. 

I don't know if anyone knows about this site but I'm going to share it anyway. It's Free Quilting and they have a pattern a day you can download. Some are quite nice. You have to register and they want you to buy magazines of course but just don't click any boxes, unless you want the magazines, and it still works. 

Advent Calendar

I'm excited about this one. It's the most favorite thing I've made yet for the bazaar. The craft group met Monday and agreed that if I can get them at the right price I can make a couple more. This one I'd gotten free when I worked at the quilt shop. There was an error in printing. There were two 8's and no 9 so she couldn't sell them. She was told to just keep them and they sent a new bolt. I used a pigma pen and changed one of the 8's into a 9. I wish I'd taken more at the time but only took it cause it was free. Proves you gotta grab a good deal when you see it even if you don't have a plan for it yet.

I've seen so many cute ones, especially here  at Fabric.com I don't know if these are on sale but they're a lot cheaper than the other stores. I got 3 Cookie jar ones on eBay for 3.99. 

I'm also making some tissue cozies. I like this pattern because I can make it with a different inside fabric that compliments the outside fabric. She has changed the way she wrote the tutorial. It looks like there is no photo on the first page but just click on "get pattern" to get her template - I actually made mine a different size. Mine is 7" x 8.5". Then go back to the first page again and click "Enter Gallery" to find the instructions.

All through the meeting they kept handing things to me saying "Shirley can make a pattern for these". Boy they have a lot of confidence in me and they hardly know me really. I'm not proud of the stuff I put together quickly for the last bazaar. I know I can make patterns but I don't have a  lot of self confidence. Anyway they handed me a sleeping mask and thats an easy one. I just traced it. I had already figured out how to do it but if you want instructions I found a series of videos here. The only thing I'm going to do differently is make the elastic in two pieces and attach velcro to it so the size is adjustable.

I'm having a hard time with my internal clock these days. I just can't get to sleep at night before 2am no matter how early I go to bed. Then I set my alarm for 9:00 but with my husband having sleeping problems (he's still up 3 or so times a night) I don't want it to wake him cause he does seem to sleep well in the morning after he's had breakfast. I think the solution would be for me to sleep in the guest room til I get turned back around but he doesn't want me to. Geesh. So here I sit at 12:30 in the afternoon still in my PJ's and having gotten nothing done but a blog entry. So I'm gonna go get dressed now and try to ignore sewing so I can tidy up around here a bit.

No quilting but boat and movie reviews.

I haven't been quilting. It's Fall cleanup time around here so I'm trying to get things done outside before it turns cold and rainy. I've also had insomnia a bit so I end up sleeping half the day away (it feels like anyway) .

Yesterday we decided it was time to put the boat away even though we've only used it a couple of times. There will be lots of times next  year to have fun on it. But we got it hooked up to the truck to back into the garage and it was such a nice warm day that we just couldn't put it away. So we jumped in the truck and off we went. We were the only ones on the river. Last time we went they had opened salmon fishing for two days so lots of people were out. Now there's no more salmon fishing but there were lots of salmon jumping. I told Bob to get closer, maybe one would jump into the boat :0) Unfortunately being a middle of the week workday there was too much smog to really enjoy the mountain view. They're quite a  ways from us anyway, about 50 miles.

I find it's really hard these days to find a really good movie. I'm not into violence, I'm not into the movies the younger ones watch. So we watch History television or TLC or something like that. But after the Emmys last Sunday I went looking for the movie Temple Grandin that won so many awards. I'm supremely ticked off that the Canadian Radio Commission won't allow us access to HBO series. We have a satellite dish but they know how to block the signal. Even if this movie hadn't won any I would have wanted to see it.

I first heard of Temple Grandin when Michael was diagnosed 15 years ago. She's an amazing woman. I've read two of her books. Her mother was told when Temple was 4 years old that Temple was autistic. She was non verbal. In the movie it showed the doctor (in 1951) telling the mother than it was her fault because the baby didn't bond with her. She hadn't hugged her enough. The only course of action was to institutionalize her - forever. This is complete rubbish, of course. But it is so "normal" for moms of autistic kids to feel like they've done something that caused it. Michael was about 5 when his problems started showing and I was horrified that it must have been something I'd done.

Temple's mom refused to believe the doctor. She knew Temple was in there somewhere, had gifts and capabilities that no one could see. The movie was great although too short for me. I wanted to know more. But it was very well done. It demonstrated the understanding between animals and autistics that researchers have just in the last 10 years or so begun to notice. Her mom pushed her to go to school. She ended up getting a PhD in animal husbandry and has designed 50% of the slaughter houses in the US. She knows what is calming and comfortable to the cattle. Even though building things her way is costly it saves in the long run because the cattle don't get spooked and things run smoothly. She's been able to become social and gives talks on being autistic and she's just the sweetest thing.

There are great movie trailers out there but I guess they're copyrighted cause I couldn't "capture" one to share. Click on the photo for a link to a YouTube video

The first time I went to rent Temple Grandin there were no copies available. The clerk knows Michael. She suggested a movie called My Name is Khan. I'd never heard of it. It's about a Muslim young man with Asperger's Syndrome (autistic) who's brother sponsors him to come to the US. I wasn't expecting much from it but boy was I wrong! I could tell from the moment it started that they knew what they were talking about Asperger wise anyway. The gait of Khan walking towards the airport is right on.

The movie has a lot of humorous parts. It adds balance to the more emotionally charging parts,  but it also shows the way it is. Asperger individuals think differently and they are completely honest, they can't tell a lie. I read one review by a person who said they felt annoyed by Khan at times. Story of my life. But I'm so used to it that I didn't notice it in the movie. Then 9/11 happens and it brings tragedy to his small family. The movie then is the story of him travelling America and writing a letter to his wife (yes, he actually does marry) in his journal of his travels. It's a very moving story and because of his differences he doesn't always know the appropriate action or words to use.

There are subtitles at the beginning of the movie and occasionally throughout but not so many that it detracts from the storyline and meaning of the movie. I believe it's a movie everyone needs to see.

Very Blue

Here's my latest creation. It was a pain getting here but they're finally done. I had a good sized piece of this fabric so wanted to make both a center piece and place mats. I have so many bits of fabric in my sewing room and I started to wonder what I was keeping it for. So I've decided to use it where needed for my charity stuff. Why not. Aside from applique BOM's I won't use it. If I want something completely applique I usually buy a lot of new fabrics that go together. Anyway, here they are

Centre piece - can't call it a runner cause it's square.

And one of four matching place mats:

Not great photos. I think they look better in person but the bindings are questionable. I didn't have enough of the snowman fabric so I added some of my own blue with tiny gold stars. I thought it would be fun to have a center mat to put things on. That's what I have on my table when the leaves are out and it's quite small and round. 

I picture this as something kids would like but maybe adults who like snowmen would like it too.

The problem with the binding is that the only fabric I had to make it with was polyester. It doesn't lay nice and flat like cotton. So the binding is not as nice as I would like it to be but on first glance it looks okay.  I did manage to do the binding on the center square on my machine. But then I spent a whole day sewing, ripping out, sewing, ripping out, adjusting tension, rethreading. winding a new bobbin, putting in a new needle. Nothing was working and I was constantly ending up with nests of thread on the bobbin side. So I gave up and have attached the binding to the front and am hand stitching as usual. 

At the very least they're done.